Joe Pitts

Joe Pitts is a native Arizonan currently working at a higher education start-up based in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to his current role, Joe served as a program coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where he focused on higher education, K-12 education, and civics; managing AEI’s FREE (Family, Religion, Education, Entrepreneurship) Initiative. His research into the ideological bias of government-supported graduate fellowships served as the basis for a U.S. House Workforce and Education Committee investigation into the Truman Foundation, and his research into the federal student loan program has informed recent bipartisan efforts to reform federal lending.

Before joining AEI, Joe co-founded and led the Arizona Chamber Foundation’s Junior Fellows Program – a first-of-its-kind public policy fellowship for Arizona undergrads – as well as the Western Tribune, a nonprofit news media company serving Arizona and the broader American West. He’s been published in The Wall Street Journal, National Review, CNN, The Dispatch, and Deseret. He is a graduate of Arizona State University’s Barrett, the Honors College where he received a B.S. in Management and a B.S. in Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. In his free time, Joe enjoys reading, lifting, taking road trips across America, volunteering at his local parish, and hosting dinners, parties, happy hours and just about any other social gathering you can imagine.